


i'm out of my head when you're not around

by Talls



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, BJ's manpain, BJ's repression, Gay Awakening, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon, Sharing a Bed, first chapter has no hawkeye but BJ pines over him anyways, happiness is a warm puppy, now it's time for Hawkeye to show up in California instead!, peg ex machina, you've heard of BJ showing up in Maine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 18:35:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28729767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talls/pseuds/Talls
Summary: In which BJ comes home after the war and, in witnessing his wife self-destruct under her own repressed emotions, starts to reconsider some of his relationship with Hawkeye.OrIn which BJ comes to realize that his best friend is his wife and his wife is his best friend and Hawkeye plays the knight in shining armor for once.
Relationships: B. J. Hunnicutt & Peg Hunnicutt, B. J. Hunnicutt/Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce, Peg Hunnicutt/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 41
Kudos: 97





	1. Peg

**Author's Note:**

> this has been such a labor of love, I literally cannot believe it's done! I was mostly trying to play around in BJ's head and then the story started growing legs and now we're here! I really hope you enjoy it!
> 
> the cast of the story is as follows: a himbo (BJ), a mean bisexual (Peg), an even meaner lesbian (Vivian), she/theys (Erin), he/theys (hawkeye) and a short king (waggles)

When you arrive at the airport, Peggy doesn’t recognize you immediately. You bump into each other by accident, actually, through the crush of men reuniting with their families. 

“Sorry, ma’am,” you say, steadying her, and she shakes your hands off briskly with a huff. You pull away immediately. To be fair, you don’t recognize her immediately either: she’s wearing slacks and she’s cut her hair short. Besides, she’s never seen you with a mustache before. 

“It’s no problem, Officer,” she says in a gracious, if cool tone, before she gets a good look at you. 

You both freeze and stare at each other for a breathless second. She looks beautiful. You’ve aged visibly, and there are crags in your face that are foreign to her smooth skin. You look like hell. Like war. The world is bustling around you, whoops and hollers sounding as lovers meet and mothers see their sons again, but you are still, the eye of the storm. 

“BJ,” she says, very quietly, like she almost can’t believe it. You can’t either. You’ve thought of her so often these past years, imagined her face so many times you warped your own memories, like pictures faded from exposure to light. Now she’s here, finally here, in front of you for the first time in a lifetime. 

“I like your haircut,” you say, inanely. She blinks at you for a disbelieving second, and then tosses her head back and bursts into almost hysterical laughter. You laugh too, just because the sound is so infectious, and god, you missed her so much. She throws herself into your arms and you spin her around in the air, over and over. Her arms are so tight around your neck that you’re almost choking. 

“I like your mustache,” she says when you finally put her down, both of you dizzy and lightheaded. She’s crying openly. So are you. “You look so dashing. You’d fit right next to Basil Rathbone in one of those fencing movies you love so much.” 

“You flatterer,” you say, because she would say the same thing to you if you looked like one of the creeps she has to deal with at the cafe. You look around her, remembering a crucial part of the process. “Where’s Erin?” 

“She’s at home with a friend right now. She gets so worked up at airports and it’s such a drive, I just thought it would be better if you got to see her at home when she’s calmer,” Peggy says. You suspect she actually wanted the opportunity to fill you in on some details at home before you see Erin.

“I trust your itinerary above all,” you offer. 

“Where are your bags?” she asks. 

“Oh, I’m sure-” you say, before you freeze, because you were about to say _I’m sure Hawkeye’s got them for us._ Whenever you lucked out with shared R&R, you were in charge of securing the taxi and Hawkeye would grab the bags and meet you outside, so you’d beat the rush. Hawkeye always grumbled about having to carry the luggage, but you’d just remind him that he could pay for the taxi if he wanted before he’d subside. 

“BJ?” Peg asks, and you snap back to reality. 

“Sorry, I completely forgot,” you say. You get the sinking feeling that you might have forgotten something more important than the luggage. She smiles. 

“In a hurry to get back to us, huh?” Peg asks, taking your lapse in stride easily and making her way to the baggage claim. The crowds part for her somehow, her upright posture carving through the throngs easily. You follow in her wake and do not think about a conspicuous absence at your side. 

The drive home from the airport usually takes forty-five minutes, an hour in traffic, and you hit the road in the middle of rush hour. Peg slides confidently into the driver’s seat before you have the chance to ask to drive, but you don’t mind that much. You’re tired, and you haven’t operated a civilian vehicle in years. You don’t even remember the last time you drove sober. Peg relays a steady stream of information and local gossip over the radio, most of which you remember from your letters. You’re still glad to get the refresher course on life at home again. 

“You’re going to love Vivian,” Peg says as she merges on the highway, excitement flooding her voice. You nod in agreement, because from what Peg’s written in her letters, Vivian is a real spitfire. She’s one of Peg’s unmarried friends, probably due to sheer force of personality. Peg once told you that when she asked Vivian about marriage, she laughed and said she could never endure a man in her house while she was trying to relax. You remember thinking that she and Margaret would get along. 

She and Hawkeye would probably get along too, you think suddenly. Vivian seems like a real pistol, maybe she and Hawkeye would hit it off. You think about what it would be like if Hawkeye and Vivian met, if they started going steady. Maybe Hawkeye would move out to California, and you could all have a double date together at your favorite restaurant in Sausalito. Maybe after, you’d invite them to get drinks at your place, and maybe they’d crash in your guest bedroom, and you’d see Hawkeye in the early morning. Maybe you’d make him a plate of eggs and do the crossword together while the women slept. 

“BJ?” Peggy asks. You turn to her.

“Sorry, I feel like such a space cadet right now,” you say. She nods knowingly. 

“What is it like to be newly stateside?” she asks. You look out the window at the brightly colored cars, at the civilians driving them, bright and smiling and untarnished by war. You look at the skyscrapers that crisscross the horizon, the smooth concrete of the roads, the overwhelming quintessential American-ness of it all. 

“It feels like I’m in a dream,” you say. It does, but not in the way you mean. You feel like any moment you’ll wake up on a hard Army cot and you’ll turn and see Hawkeye across the Swamp, blurry and bleary-eyed, in one of his rare moments between unconsciousness and monologue. 

“You won’t wake up from this,” Peg says. You turn to her in surprise, and then you remember that every single time you woke up from a dream of home, the first person you told, after Hawkeye of course, was Peg via letter. You forget that as much as you tried to keep the war from her, she never shied from the subject. 

Okay, so you underestimate your wife. What else is new? 

“Peggy Jane,” you say contemplatively. 

“Mr. Hunnicutt,” Peg says in the same tone, the way she always does when she feels the name BJ doesn’t have enough gravitas. 

“I feel like I have loved you for decades now,” you say, and watch as a smile blooms across her face. 

“You flatterer,” she says, because she knows you better than anyone in the world, except Hawkeye, of course.

*

When you get to your house in Mill Valley you suddenly get that queasy feeling you got before you threw up in that field your first day in Korea. You stand on the front stoop of your own house and feel like you're in enemy territory, like you’re about to be shelled. You can almost hear the whistle before impact. You’re tempted to crouch down and hide behind your luggage. 

You hear scratching at the door. Then barking, wild frantic barking that increases in pitch and volume. _Waggles._ The door opens and Waggles bounds up into your arms. You fall back onto the porch as Waggles covers your face with sloppy doggy kisses, pawing excitedly at your chest. You bury your hands in his scruff and press your face into his furry neck. _You are recognized._

After a few minutes of pooch heaven, you finally look up at the person who opened the door, the infamous Vivian. She has short-cropped red hair, which was probably Peg’s inspiration, and an inscrutable expression on her face. You scramble to your feet and offer her your hand. 

“You must be Vivian,” you say, smiling wider than you have during the past week of transit. “It’s wonderful to finally meet you, Peg’s told me so much about you.” Vivian puts her hand out and shakes your hand. It’s barely a handshake at all, considering that she pulls her hand away like she has difficulty touching you. 

“Nice to meet you too, BJ,” she says in what you’ve been told is an uncharacteristically subdued voice. “I’ve heard a lot about you too. I’m glad you made it home safe.” 

“Thank you. I’m glad you were here to keep Peg sane,” you say, but you must have touched a nerve because her face crumples like wet paper. 

“Excuse me, I really have to go. I forgot an engagement and I’m late enough as it is,” Vivian says, perfectly pleasantly, except for the abject misery on her face. “Bye, Jane,” she says quietly. 

“Viv, what are you talking about? He just got here,” Peg says, a look of absolute bewilderment on her face. You have no idea what you just walked into, but you take solace in the fact that Peg seems equally confused. 

“I can’t, not right now, but I’ll call later, I promise,” Vivian says, carefully avoiding eye contact with both of you. “Erin’s in the kitchen, she can’t wait to see you,” she says to you, at which point you immediately walk into the house, leaving the women outside to talk. Waggles follows at your heels. 

Erin is in her high chair in the kitchen. She’s clean, mostly, playing with a stuffed lion. She’s grown so much since you saw her last. Every new hair on her head, every new cell in her body, all of those moments in time were taken from you, and it’s almost enough to make you weep. 

“Hi, Erin,” you say tentatively. She looks up at you with big wide eyes. Your mother’s eyes. “It’s me, Daddy. Can you say Daddy?” You step closer. She blinks at you and then raises her arms as if expecting you to lift her in the air. You, of course, oblige her immediately. She curls in close to you, and you catch a whiff of her hair, gentle shampoo and that sweet smell all babies give off. Tears spring to your eyes. 

“You’re my daddy?” Erin asks, and you nod. You hate that she doesn’t know immediately, hate that there was any doubt or confusion. She nods back very seriously, before she puts her little hand on your face. “I missed you,” she says, and you can feel the tears spill down your cheeks. 

“I missed you too, baby. But I’m not going anywhere again,” you promise. She pulls her hand away from your face, extending her little pinky towards you. 

“Pinky promise?” she asks, with all of the solemnity of an undertaker. You take her pinky in yours and shake it seriously. 

“Pinky promise,” you say, and her little face lights up, her eyes crinkling shut under the force of her precious smile. You sit down at the table with her on your lap, closing your eyes and burying your nose in her fluffy hair. 

Peg finds you like that minutes later, Erin not yet squirmy enough to be put down. You’ve stopped crying, though you’re definitely still in the danger zone here. Peg is noticeably alone and upset, though as soon as she sees you with Erin again her face lightens. 

“Where Viv?” Erin asks into your neck. 

“She can’t stay?” you ask. Peg shakes her head. 

“No, she said she felt ill,” she says in that slow voice that means she doubts the veracity of the statement. 

“She seemed pretty subdued to me,” you offer in her defense. Peg frowns a bit deeper. 

“Viv usually gets louder when she’s ill,” she says in a fond, if concerned tone. You think about the way Hawkeye’s jokes got sharper and shriller the more miserable he was, the way they would increase in volume and delirium when he was sleep-deprived or had the sniffles. 

“Maybe you should call her later, ask her if she’s okay,” you suggest. Peg nods slowly. 

“Yes, I believe I’ll do just that,” she says, a martial light in her eyes. 

*

Peg tells you it’s almost time for Erin’s nap, at which point you tell her that it’s also almost time for your nap. You carry Erin upstairs to the master bedroom and lay her beside you. She curls into the crook of your arm and falls asleep almost immediately. You follow behind her swiftly. 

_You are wrist deep in a patient, but none of the organs are where they should be. You try to clamp an artery, but the blood begins to run silver and you can’t tell the difference between instrument and flesh. Someone dabs a towel on your head and when you can see again, Hawkeye is scrubbed up in front of you. He has bandages around his eyes like he did when he was blinded. He begins to operate, despite his lack of vision, and the patient begins to seize. You try to call out to him but he can’t hear you, and he certainly can’t see you either._

_“BJ?” you hear. You can’t see if Hawkeye’s mouth moved behind his surgical mask. “BJ?”_

_“I’m here,” you try to say urgently, but you find that you cannot speak at all._

You feel a touch on your shoulder, gently urging you to wake up. “BJ?” you hear again. 

“Can you take my post-op shift? I’m beat,” you hear yourself ask, just under consciousness. There’s a pause. You slip further into Morpheus’ arms. 

“Sure, BJ,” you hear. “But you’ll owe me one.” You smile. 

“Thanks, Hawk,” you say, before you fall back into sleep. This time you don’t dream at all. 

You wake up next to Peg. Erin is gone and the world is dark outside the window. Peg has her bedside lamp on as she reads a Miss Marple Mystery. 

“What time is it?” you croak. Peg looks down at you and smirks. 

“Just past ten,” she says. “Don’t worry. I covered for you in post-op.” You furrow your brows in confusion. She shakes her head and closes the book, placing it on the bedside table and turning to face you a bit more. You realize that this is the first time you’ve been in bed with your wife since the night before you left for basic training. You had held her while she sobbed in your arms and you ignored reality. This feels different.

“Did you call Vivian?” you ask. She nods, her lips pinched.

“She didn’t pick up,” she says, worrying the inside of her lip with her teeth. You nod. 

“You’ll call her tomorrow,” you say, and she nods. “And the next day, and the day after that,” you continue, and finally she smiles. 

“Oh, so you’ve met me,” she says, and you smile up at her. You missed her so much. She’s the best friend you’ve ever had, except Hawkeye, of course. 

“I’ll start looking for work tomorrow,” you say, but Peg shakes her head immediately. 

“Oh no, buster, absolutely not,” she says, faux censure in her voice. “You’re not getting off so easy.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” you ask, rearing back a bit. 

“Your daughter is in her terrible twos right now, and I have a very busy month ahead of me at work. If you even think about seeking employment for the next month and a half, I will take drastic action. I’ve been looking forward to a house-husband for months now, you cannot take this from me.” She’s being kind to you, of course, letting you off the hook while making sure you still feel needed. She’s always been so good to you. 

“Well, don’t blame me when I usurp you as her favorite parent,” you say, because sometimes when Peg is very diplomatic, the nicest thing you can do is pretend you didn’t see her manipulate you with grace and ease. 

“Oh, please,” she says, scoffing. “The way she terrorizes Waggles, she’s not even my favorite child right now.” You both laugh softly, always aware of the sleeping child down the hall. 

You subside and look at each other for a long moment. She reaches her hand out and pushes some of your hair behind your ear. It’s tender and affectionate, and you bring your hand up to touch her wrist lightly in response. 

“Mr. Hunnicutt,” she says, quietly, pulling her hand back. 

“Peggy Jane,” you respond. 

“I can’t believe you’re here right now,” she says, an expression you don’t recognize settling over her face. 

“You’re not going to wake up from this either,” you say, and her corner of her lips quirks up. She turns the light on her side off. 

“Will you be able to sleep again tonight?” she asks in the darkness. 

“Not really. I think I’m going to write a letter,” you say, and she hums in approval. 

“Hawkeye’s probably desperate to hear from you,” she says, because she can still read you better than anyone, except Hawkeye, of course. 

You walk to the office downstairs, flicking the light on, Waggles following you dutifully, looking up at you with big sleepy eyes. The desk is covered with Peg’s papers from work, real-estate documents that you couldn’t begin to parse. You move as little as you can to clear a space to write. 

Dear Hawkeye, 

God, it’s strange to start a letter like this. I keep turning my head to the side to talk to you before I remember how far away you are now. I only just got home today, but I already can’t wait to see you again. As soon as you get settled in, we need to plan a trip to see each other. There’s already so much that I want to tell you, so much that I would have already told you by now if you were here. I guess that’s what these letters are for, right? 

You write long into the night. Waggles sleeps at your feet. 

*

The next morning, you have coffee and breakfast waiting for Peggy on the kitchen table. She comes downstairs with Erin on her hip, and both of them cheer when they see you. You made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with apple slices for Erin, and pancakes with bacon for Peggy. 

“This is exactly what I was talking about,” Peggy says as she digs into her breakfast and you hover over Erin with a damp paper towel to handle the inevitable spills she’ll produce with her tiny messy body. “Keep this up, Hunnicutt, and I might just have to keep you around long term.” 

“We’ll renegotiate my pay in a few months,” you respond, delighted that she’s actually enjoying the meal. Erin mouths at her apple slices. “Are you going to stop by the post office today?” 

“I wasn’t planning on it, but I certainly can. Why, did you finish the letter?” she asks. You nod and slide it across the table along with a mug of coffee with three sugars in it, just how she likes it. “Perfect. I’ll get it done.” 

She leaves after writing down a list of times that Erin usually sleeps and eats, most of which she has already detailed to you in months of letters, but you’re glad for the list anyways. You and Erin sit in the living room and she shows you all of her favorite toys. She likes the dolls you sent her from Korea best, apparently, which makes you tear up and clutch her tiny body close to yours until she squirms away in search of new entertainment. 

You start another letter to Hawkeye while Erin’s eating lunch. 

Dear Hawk, 

I know I just sent you a letter. Forgive me my pen, but every second I’m not with you is another thing I need to say to you. Erin is twice the wonder Peg described to us in her letters. I can’t wait for both of you to finally meet! You’re going to love her, and she’s going to love you too -- she’s a real terror sometimes, and there’s nothing you appreciate more than an independent young woman on the rampage. 

You work on the letter in your spare moments, sharing your time between your two favorite people on earth. It’s peaceful. When Peg comes home you have dinner waiting for her on the table, and she smiles gratefully, and that feels correct. It makes sense to take care of her, so you do. After dinner, you play with Erin until she’s a bit more tired out, then put her to bed. When you come back downstairs Peggy is looking over some contracts in her office, so you sit down to finish the letter to Hawkeye, listening to a Frank Sinatra record on the phonograph. 

When Peg heads upstairs to sleep, you don’t follow her, still focused on the letter. By the time you finally get upstairs, she’s fast asleep. You don’t know why that fills you with relief, but you don’t question it, sliding into your side of the bed and falling asleep. 

The next day goes much the same, and by the fourth day, you’ve slipped into a comfortable routine. You wake up before Peg and assemble the breakfasts while Peg gets Erin dressed. Then she heads to work and you spend time with Erin, doing whatever activity you think will be fun. One day you take her to the San Francisco Zoo, holding her on your shoulders as you point out the elephants in their enclosure, telling her stories about the animals Radar kept. Another day you go to a public park with Waggles and you push her on the swingset until she’s shrieking in delighted laughter. Another, you go to a public library and check out as many children’s books as you can, and you spend the next four days reading them to her in the funniest voices you can make. 

After your morning activity, you eat lunch together and then Erin naps while you work on your next letter to Hawkeye. When Peg gets home, Erin is usually just getting up from her nap, and you all have dinner together. You, Peg, and Erin spend time together until Erin needs to sleep, at which point Peg usually excuses herself to bed as well. You wait until you're sure she’s asleep before you follow her upstairs. 

A week passes. Hawkeye doesn’t write back. You’re not surprised. He must be busy getting sleep for the first time in years. That’s fine. You understand. You keep writing letters, of course, chronicling developments in your new life at home. 

Erin knows all about you of course, not just from the letters but also from that tape you sent Peg of us talking. If I say Hawkeye, she knows I’m talking about you. She’s bad with nicknames though right now -- when I say Hawk, she thinks I must be talking about her. She’s started responding to Hawk, which will be fun to navigate when you get over here, though I’m sure we’ll come up with a less confusing nickname for her by then. Maybe Hawklet? Minihawk? I’m sure you’ll come up with some better ideas. Let me know soon! 

Another week passes. You send him four more letters, all of which go ignored. 

Hawkeye! Blink twice if you’ve been kidnapped! I’m anxious to hear about Crabapple Cove, I got so used to hearing about it in the newspapers you’d get from home. How’s your father? How are you? 

Another week passes. You send him two more letters. No response. 

That’s fine. You get it. Returning to civilian life is jarring for anyone, and Hawkeye was so fragile by the end of the war. It makes sense that he’d need a bit of space. That’s fine. You’ll keep sending the letters, and whenever he’s ready, he’ll know he can pick right back up with you. 

Peg sympathizes with you over meals. Vivian hasn’t been calling her back, despite Peg’s relentless campaign. Peg even tried writing her a letter like you, but it came back marked ‘Return to Sender’. Both of you are starting to get antsy, you from lack of work, Peg from overwork, and both from absent best friends. You start waking up in the middle of the night in cold sweats, your dreams fading into oblivion before you can remember them. If it wasn’t for Erin, you would have already started searching for a job, but Peg wasn’t lying when she told you about how busy work is for her this time of year. 

One night, you wake up and Peg isn’t in bed next to you. You get the feeling that you won’t be falling back asleep anytime soon, so you get up to find her. You head to Erin’s room first, but that room is dark and quiet except for Erin’s slight whistle of a snore. You stay there for a few minutes, watching her small body rise and fall as she breathes. 

You hope she’s sleeping well. You hope she’s dreaming of sweet things. You lean over her crib and tuck one of her curls behind her ear, and she snuffles in her sleep before subsiding. Even with all of your hours together, there’s so much of her that you don’t know well enough yet. Peggy could probably map out Erin’s entire sleep cycle based on the way she turns in her sleep. You’re a quick study, but even you’re going to take more time to relearn your daughter. You smooth her hair back again. That’s fine. You have the time. 

You leave Erin in her room and pad down the stairs to the kitchen, the second most likely location of your errant wife. 

Before you can make it all the way downstairs, you hear voices, harsh whispers from the foyer. You sit down on the steps so you can’t be seen. 

“We’ve been getting along just fine, thank you very much,” you hear Peg say. “Just because I didn’t see him for a few years doesn’t mean I don’t know him anymore.” You suspect you might be the ‘he’ in this conversation. 

“Fine, maybe you do know him, but you definitely don’t need him anymore!” someone points out. You think hard and place the voice as Vivian’s. 

“Maybe I don’t,” Peg retorts, and you don’t know exactly how to describe the feeling that settles at the pit of your stomach upon hearing that. It sits heavy though. “But he needs me, and Erin needs him, and I need Erin, so I guess it comes out in the wash. We’re just going to have to adapt.” 

“Adapt? Oh please. I know exactly what’s going to happen,” Vivian says, her voice almost cruel. “You’re going to try to stake out your little corners of independence, but slowly and surely you’re going to concede things to him, things he’ll want you to do, things he’ll want you not to do. You’ll grow your hair long again, and you’ll wear your dresses instead of your slacks, and you’ll forget that you know how to change your own tires and clean your own gutters because you’ll have a _man_ to do it for you again.” 

“That’s not true, and it’s offensive to boot,” Peg shoots back furiously. “I am not the wimp you paint me out to be, and BJ is not a villain in my story. He’s my husband, and my best friend, and the father of my child, who you love, by the way.” 

“Sure, he’s all of those things, and he’s also been absent for the past two years of your life,” Vivian says sharply. 

“Because he was at war!” Peg whisper screams. “How could be so uncharitable, Vivian? This isn’t like you at all.” 

“I’ve always been mean, Jane, I just wasn’t mean to you,” Vivian says in a snide voice. 

“No, that’s not true. You’re brutally honest, and sometimes that feels mean, but you’re never cruel, not like this,” Peg says. “You’ve never said anything so unkind to me. Do you think BJ wanted to be in Korea? Do you think he wrote me three letters every week for the entire war because he was having such a good time away from his wife and daughter and indoor plumbing?” 

“No,” Vivian says, chastened. Peg doesn’t stop. 

“Of course I became a different person while BJ was away, of course I did. I was all alone, I had a daughter and a mortgage, and I had to survive, so I did. BJ would never begrudge me the person I became without him, just like I would never begrudge him the person he became without me. And the fact that you thought I could just abandon him when I’m all the home he has, when he took care of me and our daughter as best he could in the middle of that godforsaken place, means you don’t know me nearly as well as I thought you did.” 

There’s a silence. 

“You’re right,” Vivian says, finally, her voice suddenly very even and subdued. “You would never leave him, especially not now when he needs you most. I don’t even dislike the man, he was perfectly pleasant to me when we met. He seems to really love you. And you’re right, he’s probably going to be a perfect husband, and you’re going to be a perfect wife, and I’m not going to be part of your life at all.” 

“What, you’re just leaving me?” Peg asks in a shocked, betrayed voice. “He comes home and I don't mean anything to you anymore?” 

“Don’t say ‘leaving me’ like that,” Vivian says miserably. “Don’t say it like I ever had you to begin with. How did you imagine this working after the war? Did you think we would still get to slow dance to the radio in the living room for hours while your husband cooked us dinner? Did you think I’d still get to take care of Erin when you finally had a second parent around?” 

“I didn’t think about it because I thought we were going to figure it out together when the time came,” Peg cries. Vivian laughs bitterly. 

“I gotta go, Jane,” Vivian says. “You’re right, I’m not usually this cruel. It’s just killing me to be here with you and know that we’ll never be the same again, that I’ve lost something I didn’t even have in the first place.” 

“You have me,” Peg says earnestly, desperately. “Viv, I need you. I couldn’t have done any of this without you, you can’t just leave me, not like this.” 

“I’m sorry,” Vivian says. “I really hope things work out with you and BJ, because you deserve a man who wants you to be free, but I can’t be here for this.” 

“Viv, please,” Peg begs, before you hear the front door open and then close. 

Peg stands in the foyer for a long time after Vivian leaves. You don’t move to her, still unsure about how she’ll react to your blatant espionage. 

Finally, she turns and walks to the stairs, catching sight of you seated on one of the middle steps. She jumps a bit, putting her hand to her mouth to catch her squeak of shock. Then, horror washes over her as she realizes what you must have overheard. She drops her hand slowly. 

“How long?” she asks, her voice resigned. 

“Long enough,” you respond. You sit in silence for a bit longer. She’s not crying, but there’s something desolate about her expression that you want to console. She almost looks afraid of what you’ll say next. “Peggy Jane,” you say in a solemn tone. She lifts her head, wariness spreading across her face. 

“Mr. Hunnicutt,” she says very slowly. 

“You look like you could use a belt,” you say. She stares at you for a long moment. 

“You know, I think you might just be right,” she says. 

* 

You tell Peggy to go find all the alcohol you have in the kitchen before you run upstairs to one of your bags from Korea. You grab the red suspenders and your fishing hat and put them on before heading back downstairs again, where you find Peggy with two handles of whiskey and cups in front of her at the kitchen table. As soon as she catches a glimpse of you, she claps a hand over her mouth to stop herself from laughing too loudly. 

“Welcome, madam,” you say, grabbing one of the handles and pouring a generous helping for the both of you. “The house special is whiskey, but we have a full tasting menu available to you at your discretion.” 

Peg grabs one of the glasses and tosses it back, wincing before setting it back gently on the table. “Talk to me about the tasting menu, garçon.” 

“Well, let me catch up first,” you say, throwing your glass back as well and pouring both of you another serving. The alcohol barely burns going down, and you take a second to appreciate how truly awful the swill you made in the Swamp was. 

“Not to be difficult, BJ,” Peg says, already putting a bit more effort into enunciating her vowels the way she always does when booze hits her system. “But I feel like talking to my husband about this situation won’t actually help in uncomplicating it.” 

“Don’t think of me as your husband,” you say, grabbing your glass and taking a generous gulp of it. “I’m just the bartender in the O Club right now.” 

Peg narrows her eyes at you. “You played this role a lot over there, didn’t you?” she asks. You nod. “Wearing those suspenders?” 

“Usually,” you say. You started wearing the suspenders after Hawkeye broke into the peace talks at Panmunjom. He had been so desperate for some red, trying and failing to tape a tassel on his shirt, and you remember that you wanted to remind him that he wasn’t alone, that someone else was just as fed up as him. Then, the red suspenders started feeling like your mustache, like rebellion in a sea of army drab. 

“I still don’t know, BJ,” she says. 

“Don’t call me BJ,” you say. You’re struck with drunk epiphany. “Call me Hawkeye.” 

“What?” she asks. 

“He’s far enough away from the situation that it should be easier to talk to him,” you say, “and I already know all his lines.” 

“You know his lines?” she asks, taking a generous gulp of her drink and then motioning to you to fill her up again. 

“Yeah, we always knew what the other was going to say,” you say, topping off your drink as well and sipping it again. “We were practically interchangeable most days.” 

She narrows her eyes at you before dropping her forehead on the table for a little. “What the hell,” she finally says, sitting up again. “There’s really no other option, is there?” 

“Not really,” you say as kindly as possible. 

“Well then,” she says. “Hawkeye. I’ve had the worst day.” 

“Tell me about it,” you say. “But start from the beginning, I get lost easily. I had to use a compass, a map and the North Star to find my way out of bed this morning.” That sounds like Hawkeye, doesn’t it? 

“Well, I have this husband,” she says, smirking up at you. You widen your eyes and grin salaciously. 

“Handsome guy?” you ask. She rolls her eyes, sipping at her drink. 

“Oh, he’ll do,” she says. You scoff. 

“I’m sure he’s an Adonis,” you say, throwing some whiskey back. You’re starting to feel something finally, your tolerance truly monstrous now that you’re back home. 

“If you say so, _Hawkeye_ ,” she says pointedly. You raise your hands. 

“If Hawkeye was here, he’d say it too,” you defend yourself, and you don’t even think you’re lying that much. 

“Okay fine, so I’m married to this walking Adonis,” Peg says, and both of you laugh. You subside and fill her drink again. “But he had to go to war,” she says, her voice touched with melancholy. 

“What a cad,” you say in mock disapproval. Well. Some of it is mock, at least. 

“It wasn’t his fault,” she says seriously, before leaning back in her chair and looking into middle distance. “It wasn’t his fault, but it was catastrophic. More for him than for me, of course, on every level, but it was like a meteor crashed through the roof. Everything changed. There were so many things that I didn’t know about the world, things I had always relied on my husband to take care of for me.” 

“Surely there were some things you knew,” you prompt her. “You seem like a very capable young woman.” 

“Oh, of course. I don’t know if BJ ever told you this, Hawkeye, but I grew up on a farm. I knew how to take care of things back there, of course, but there were also things that Dad always did that I never had to handle. And life on a farm is very different from life in San Francisco, especially for a single mother. When my lovely, wonderful husband left, I had to learn how to do a lot of things very quickly.” 

“You must be very brave,” you say, looking at your lovely, wonderful wife. You touch her glass with yours, and both of you drink. 

“Not really,” she says, after she drinks. She’s drunk now, a little more prone to cursing and acting like her father. “I was scared shitless, actually. I ended up having a breakdown over cereal brands in the supermarket.” You almost break character and ask her why she never told you about this before, before deciding against it. 

“I often feel the same way when I confront Misters Snap, Crackle, and Pop,” you say. She laughs. 

“The unholy trinity,” she riffs and you both giggle. “Anyways, that’s where I met Viv,” she says, waving her drink with a flourish. 

“Oh?” you ask, because this is not when you anticipated Vivian’s entrance. 

“She was supposed to buy some Sugar Frosted Flakes, but she never got around to it. I was just sobbing silently in front of the Alpha-Bits with Erin in front of me in a push stroller, and all of a sudden, this strange woman took me by the arm and handled all of the talking and the transactions until we got out of the supermarket. Then she walked me to a café, bought me a coffee, and said, ‘Lady, I’m gonna need you to get a grip and tell me what happened.’” 

You burst out laughing and so does she. “What did you say?” you finally ask, when you’ve gotten a handle on yourself. 

“Well, at the time I was so distraught that I just started talking, and then I couldn’t stop,” Peg says. “It was completely incoherent, she should have just walked away from me.” 

“But she didn’t,” you say. Peg shakes her head. 

“No, she didn’t. She listened until I needed to get home and feed Erin, then told me I was overreacting and most things that ‘men’ do are easy once you know how to do them. Then she gave me her information and said the next time I ran into something I couldn’t figure out, I should just give her a ring, and she’d help me handle it. The next day the stove broke, so I called her and she came over and showed me how to fix it.

“After that, it was like she practically lived here. She came over to take care of Erin whenever I had to go into work. She was half of the reason I started searching for jobs at all. She taught me how to change a tire, and she took me shopping for slacks, and she braided my hair so it wouldn't get in my face whenever I did work around the house. In the evening, she’d bring these jazz records over, and we’d play them on the phonograph and slow dance in the living room while Erin slept. She’s the one who filmed the anniversary video you and I made for BJ.” 

You don’t know why her words make you feel homesick when you’re already home. You down your drink. 

“I thought I’d get to keep that when you came home, or that maybe things would change a bit, but she would still bring her records over sometimes and maybe all of us could dance together. Apparently that wasn’t in the cards for her.” 

You stare at her for a long moment. “Are you in love with her?” you finally ask. She freezes. “Speaking as Hawkeye, of course,” you add. It’s not an unreasonable guess. You know what Peg looks like when she’s in love. She was in love with you for years. 

“I don’t know,” she finally says. You nod. “I don’t know anything, BJ,” she says, breaking character. She rubs the heels of her hands in her eyes. You pull her into your arms and hold her as she begins to sob. You don’t feel jealous or angry, not as much as you expect yourself to. You just feel an aching sort of loss under your sternum, one you’ve felt but haven’t named since you’ve been home, one you suspect has nothing to do with your wife at all. 

* 

After that, things start to change even more at home. Peg falls asleep in your arms, so you carry her upstairs and tuck her into bed before going to sleep in the guest room. You don’t sleep in the master bedroom again. 

Peg takes the car and goes to Vivian’s apartment the next afternoon and doesn’t come back til morning. You’re waiting when she comes home with fresh coffee and raised eyebrows and she blushes so hard you start to worry about her blood pressure. 

“Vivian’s coming over this afternoon,” Peg says after she’s had half her coffee. You nod and smirk. 

“Should Erin and I make ourselves scarce?” you ask, but Peg shakes her head. 

“She’s coming over to apologize to you and introduce herself again,” Peg says.

“She doesn’t need to apologize,” you say, but she shakes her head. 

“You heard what she said. She was way out of line. You may not need the apology, but I do,” she says, so you drop it immediately. 

Vivian does come over and apologize, introducing herself with a self-deprecating wit that reminds you so strongly of Hawkeye you forget that there was any bad blood between you. Erin is ecstatic to see her, chanting ‘Viv’ and whining until Vivian picks her up. She ends up staying for dinner, which you do end up making for them as they slow dance in the living room to the phonograph. Erin sits in her high chair and offers limited commentary as you make silly faces for her amusement. 

Vivian starts spending the night more often than not, to the point where she practically lives out of the master bedroom. She works as a mechanic at a car shop with very flexible hours, and with her around as a third beloved caretaker for Erin, you’re finally able to start looking for work. You apply for positions in trauma surgery specifically, and every time you casually mention the paper you and Charles co-authored, the interviewer’s jaw drops. You get offers from every practice you apply to and end up writing Hawkeye about it before you get the chance to tell Peg or Vivian, scrawling the words on the notepad you’ve taken to carrying around with you at red lights on the way home. 

Surgery at work is nothing compared to surgery in Korea. You keep waiting to get thrown back into a spiral remembering those twenty-hour shifts, the shelling, the way the hospital beds would be packed in so tight you would brush up against the back of the surgeon behind you, usually Hawkeye if the two of you could swing it. But hospital conditions state-side are nothing like they were back there, and there’s no shrapnel in any of the wounds you operate on. There are some gruesome cases, but you didn’t go into surgery because you were particularly squeamish, and it doesn’t hurt that you outperform most of the senior surgeons on the harder operations, thanks to sheer practice. 

Most importantly, you don’t have to make the same kind of triage decisions mid-operation that you used to have to make before. This isn’t meatball surgery anymore. Here, you’re not dissuaded from fighting until the end for the patient, you’re expected to. 

You never stop sending Hawkeye letters, even though you’ve gotten the message at this point - Hawk doesn’t want to talk to you right now. Peg hasn’t asked why you keep mailing them, but she’s never been one to prod you when you’re not willing to talk. Hawkeye, in comparison, would have tied you down to a table and demanded answers by now. You wouldn’t have them for him, and you don’t have them for yourself. You just know that it’s better when you talk to Hawkeye, better when you imagine how he would react to the petty indignities of your life, your small triumphs, your musings about the remnants of the war that live in your mind and cause trouble on rough nights. It’s fine that he doesn’t write back. Really. It’s not like he’s returning them to sender the way Vivian did, so he must be fine with receiving them. It’s all fine. 

*

One day you come home from a rough shift to find Peg, Vivian and Erin seated at the dinner table clustered around the phone, Waggles dancing at their feet. They didn’t hear you walk in, so you stay silent, because apparently the only way you learn things in this house is by eavesdropping. 

“What do you mean he can’t come to the phone?” Peg asks, her voice starting to get shrill the way it does when she’s been frustrated past the point of reason. There’s a pause. “Boston?!” Peg shrieks. “What could he be doing in Boston?” 

“Boston?” Erin asks. 

“It’s a city on the other side of the country, where they’re very mean and talk in loud obnoxious voices,” Vivian supplies helpfully. 

“Obnoshous?” Erin asks, doing surprisingly well on her first attempt, if you’ll say so yourself. She gets that from you. 

“Well, can you at least tell us if he’s alright? It’s been killing BJ that he hasn’t been responding, and it hasn’t exactly been great for my nerves either,” Peg asks plaintively. “I haven’t heard this little about him in ages, I’m starting to miss him.” You suddenly understand exactly who she is talking to. Of course she has Daniel Pierce’s number. They met. You orchestrated it. 

“Obnoxious, sweetheart, is a good word for the person talking to your mother right now,” Vivian says, just in time for Peg to pick up a pen and throw it clear across the room in frustration. Waggles chases after it obediently. 

“He told you not to-?” Peg rages, before the fury wipes away from her face, leaving behind an intensity so restrained that you feel a bit afraid. “Well then,” Peg says, her voice suddenly as implacable as an iced-over lake. “Please give Hawkeye my best. Tell him if that’s what he wants, I’ll respect his wishes.” There’s a pause. 

“What is he saying?” Vivian asks, but Peg holds up a finger to silence her as she listens. 

“I understand completely, Daniel. It’s out of your hands,” Peg says sympathetically, though her tone maintains that blank evenness. “It would certainly take drastic intervention, wouldn’t it?” 

She listens for a few minutes more, before she barks a quick laugh. “Oh, I’m sure I’ll think of something,” she says. “Bye, Daniel.” 

You wait until she hangs up the phone before you clear your throat. Vivian and Peg jump and turn guiltily. Erin also jumps and turns a bit, but that’s just because she’ll do anything if any two of you do it at the same time. It’s a trait that makes for some fun evenings. 

“Well, this feels uncomfortably familiar,” Peg says, grimacing. Vivian doesn’t look confused, which makes you think Peg has already told her that particular anecdote. 

“He doesn’t want to hear from me, does he?” you ask, something in your voice ringing hollow. You try to smile. 

“Daniel implied that there were more complex reasons,” Peg tries, but Vivian shakes her head and Peg subsides. 

“That’s okay,” you say. Your voice sounds far away, as if it’s coming from a great distance. “I understand.” You don’t understand. You don’t understand at all. This is not Hawkeye just needing a bit of time before he can muster up the will to write back, this is Hawkeye saying he’s done with you. 

“Well, I don’t, no offense, BJ,” Vivian says, her voice strident. Your head pounds. You’re so tired. You had a rough operation today, a teenager who got in a car accident. Vivian is still talking, but you’re not processing any of it. You’re too tired to think about any of this right now. Did you write something that offended him? Was the goodbye note not enough? Were you not enough? 

Erin tugs on your pant leg, and you pick her up on instinct. She puts her little hand on your face, tugging at your mustache.

“Daddy?” she asks, and you realize you haven’t spoken in far too long. 

“Yes?” you ask, your voice coming out remarkably even. 

“Are you okay?” she asks. You nod. 

“Yes. I’m just fine, sweetheart,” you say, and you almost sound convincing. 

“Could you quit that?” Vivian asks, her voice reaching impossible new heights of volume. You wince. “You’re not fine, this is not fine. Look at you, BJ, you’ve lost weight, you walk through life half in a fugue state when you’re not working or with Erin-” 

“Vivian,” Peg attempts to intervene, but Vivian is moving too fast to slow. 

“Now Hawkeye’s just given you the blow-off while he messes around in Boston,” she continues, “and it looks like you were hit with a truck.” You wince again at the reminder of your operation. The kid made it, but it got too close a few times there. “Can you just admit that you are not fine right now?” 

“Okay,” you say, because you’re too tired to fight. Vivian deflates visibly, guilt flooding her features as she realizes she went too far. 

“BJ, why don’t you go shower? I’ll fix you a plate for dinner,” Peg says, taking control of the situation. You smile weakly and nod, putting Erin down with a little kiss on her forehead and heading upstairs. You step into the guest room to grab your robe, but your bed calls to you, and before you know it, you’re fast asleep. 

_You’re in a field. You don’t know if it’s mined, so you stand perfectly still. A wind ripples across the grass. You look up into the unforgiving sun and when you look back down, Hawkeye is next to you. His eye sockets are empty. You reach out and grab his arm, but as soon as you touch him, he hurtles forward, as if he is being dragged across the field with a rope. You scramble forward to catch him but he slips through your fingers like smoke._

*


	2. Hawkeye

Two weeks, one heartfelt apology from Vivian, and zero letters later, you’ve just put Erin down for her nap when you hear the doorbell ring. You think about ignoring it before it rings again, and then once more. You roll your eyes at whatever asshole is standing out there but dutifully run downstairs to get the door, fully ready to unload a stream of invective if they’re trying to sell something to you. 

You open the door and Hawkeye is standing in front of you on your doorstep, wild-eyed and carrying luggage. The whole world goes still, then wonky, like gravity changed all of a sudden, and now you have to acclimate to Earth all over again. 

“Oh, thank god,” Hawkeye says before he throws himself into your arms. You embrace him in a daze, holding him close while you try desperately to parse the stimulus. He smells like recycled air and pine needles, and he’s lost weight, his ribs poking you through your shirts. You run a hand up his spine, counting the knobs of his vertebrae as you do, cradling the nape of his neck and running your fingers through his salt and pepper hair. He feels so familiar in your arms, you almost forget what it’s been like these past months without him. 

All of a sudden, Hawkeye pulls away, even as you try to keep him in your arms. “Beej, what are you thinking?” he yells. 

“What?” you ask, bewildered. It’s almost too classic of Hawkeye to show up out of the blue with no warning and ask you what _you’re_ doing. Hawkeye’s audacity is unparalleled. 

“You shouldn’t be standing up, what’s the matter with you?” Hawkeye asks, pushing you into the house. Waggles is immediately underfoot, and you almost trip over him a couple times as he tries desperately to introduce himself to Hawkeye. 

“Hawk, your bag,” you say, still completely baffled as to what exactly is happening in your home. 

“Forget my bag, the neighborhood kids can take it for all I care,” Hawkeye says, shoving you gently back onto the living room couch, before he leans down and scoops Waggles into his arms, letting him nose around his face. “God, the airport was such a nightmare, Beej,” he says as he walks back to the front door to get his luggage. “I picked my bag up and walked outside expecting you to be there with the taxi, only to realize there was about an hour's worth of more waiting. By the way, San Francisco traffic could only be improved by the addition of artillery shells.” 

“And you weren’t even driving in rush hour,” you add, in a daze. Hawkeye! Here! Hawkeye sets Waggles on the ground again, who comes to greet you excitedly as if to share the good news of Hawkeye’s arrival. 

“God, what am I thinking, talking about driving right now?” Hawkeye asks, newly solicitous again. He comes close and kneels in front of the couch, reaching out to unbutton your shirt. Your cheeks heat, and you feel your heart speed up. 

“Hawkeye,” you say breathlessly. What is he doing? Are you dreaming? Would that be any better, if you were dreaming about Hawkeye pushing you down on a couch and undressing you, if you were dreaming about him on his knees in front of you? 

“Help me out here,” Hawkeye says, his voice surprisingly matter-of-fact for what’s happening. Or maybe not, because you clearly do not know what exactly is happening. 

“Hawk, I’m happy to see you, but I’m not that easy,” you say, grabbing his hands and holding them still against your chest. 

“Funny, very funny,” Hawkeye says in that biting tone he uses when he’s not even a little amused. “Come on, Beej, enough of the tough guy routine.” 

“What routine? Hawk, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” you say, now more than a little exasperated. 

“What routine, he asks,” Hawkeye says in an appeal to the invisible audience that lives in his head. “Your injury, you moron. Under all my debonair charm, I happen to be a medical doctor, and this has been an incredibly costly house call, so drop the attitude and strip.” 

“Injury? Hawk, I’m fine,” you say. His hands are warm in yours, pressed up against your sternum, your heart. Your fingers tighten around him. 

“That’s what you say when you’re not fine,” Hawkeye says, but now you’re starting to see confusion in his eyes. Thank god. It was always miserable when you and Hawkeye weren’t on the same page. At least if he’s confused too, you can be confused together again. 

“I’ll concede that point, but right now I am completely uninjured,” you say as earnestly as you can. Hawkeye scrutinizes your expression, peering deeply into your eyes. He must be satisfied by what he sees because he sits back hard on his heels and cocks his head to the side the way he does when he’s puzzled. Next to him, Waggles does the same thing. It is punishingly adorable. 

“Well, then, what the hell am I doing here?” Hawkeye asks. 

“That’s what I was asking,” you say. Just as you say that, the front door opens again. 

“Hey BJ, there’s going to be a guest showing up sometime today, so don’t freak out if-” you hear Peg say. 

“Way too late on that one,” Hawkeye interrupts, his voice sharp. There’s a long silence. Then, Peg walks in very sheepishly. 

“Your flight came in early,” Peg cheers weakly. 

“That it did,” Hawkeye says, something icy in his tone, before he notices that you’re still holding his hands to your chest and pulls them away swiftly. You don’t have time to mourn the loss before he’s standing up and walking to your wife. 

“Can I offer you something to drink?” Peg asks in her best hostess voice. Hawkeye stands in front of her and glares. 

“Peg, I think the situation is much worse than you related to me,” he says. “I think there might be significant cranial trauma in play here.” 

“Really?” Peg says, furrowing her brows. You could probably warn her that she’s walking into a trap, but since it seems like she set you up for ambush, you think you’ll hold your peace this time. 

“Yeah, it seems that BJ doesn’t remember the massive four-car pile-up you wrote me about,” Hawkeye says. “In fact, he seems to believe that he hasn’t been injured in any automotive incident at all.” 

“You told him I was in a four-car pile-up?” you ask, aghast. God, no wonder Hawkeye had been so relieved to see you standing up. If Daniel told you Hawkeye was in an accident that bad, you don’t know how you would have reacted, what you would have done. 

“Hawkeye,” Peg starts, but Hawkeye is still on a roll. 

“What’s worse, I believe his ailment is contagious, because I too am starting to think he wasn’t in an accident,” Hawkeye says, his voice raising as he talks. 

“Well, can you blame me?” Peg asks, matching Hawkeye’s volume. “You haven’t answered letters, telegrams or smoke signals, you won’t even let Daniel tell us how you are. What were we supposed to do, short of showing up in Maine with Erin in tow?” she cries, just as Erin decides to enter the conversation by waking up from her nap as loudly as possible. 

“I’ll get her,” you and Peg say simultaneously, before locking eyes and engaging in a fierce battle of wills, which Peg wins, because she has a stronger will. Hawkeye doesn’t speak until Peggy is halfway up the stairs. 

“I’m really sorry about this, Beej,” Hawkeye says quietly, avoiding eye contact. You step in front of him and try to catch his eyes, feeling frustrated when he continues to duck you. 

“It’s no problem. She really got you, didn’t she?” you ask, trying to lighten the tension. You step closer and Hawkeye steps back. “What, you can undress me when you think I’m injured, but now that I’m healthy you can’t even look at me?” You try to speak in a joking tone, but it just comes out wounded instead. 

“Come on, Beej, you know it’s not like that,” Hawkeye says, flicking his eyes up to meet yours once before he’s looking elsewhere again. 

“What is it like, then?” you ask, stepping forward again, so Hawkeye is pinned up against the back of the couch. He looks vaguely panicked to be hemmed in like this, but screw his panic, you haven’t seen him in weeks, months, years, decades! 

“I was worried about you. I thought you were at death’s door. That’s the whole reason I showed up,” Hawkeye says defensively. You step in closer again, so the tip of his left shoe is right between your feet. He’s starting to run out of safe places to look to avoid you. 

“So you're saying if you kept believing I was healthy, I would never have seen you again?” you ask, fury starting to boil in your chest. 

“I thought you’d be happy,” Hawkeye cries. “I thought you’d be safe at home, and you wouldn’t have to live a life divided anymore, and then suddenly you were writing me a letter a day, as if you were in Korea again.” Now he’s looking at you again, his blue eyes confused and upset. “You were supposed to leave the war behind, not cling to it!” 

“Oh, that’s rich, you spend every second of every minute in Uijeongbu telling people that you’re not actually a part of the war, only to come home and forget all of that,” you say angrily, because how can someone so intelligent be so thick-headed sometimes? “I wasn’t clinging to the war, you moron, I was clinging to you, because you’re the best friend I ever had and I missed you, and I thought you missed me too, though now I’m starting to think differently.” At that, the anger floods out of you, leaving behind a tense misery.

There’s a pause. Something dawns in Hawkeye’s eyes and he reaches out a hand and tangles it in your partially unbuttoned shirt. 

“Oh, Beej,” Hawkeye breathes. The fight has gone out of his shoulders now. “Of course I missed you too,” Hawkeye says, quietly, penitently. “Every morning, I woke up and looked to my right to try and catch a glimpse of you. I felt phantom pains whenever I made a joke I thought you would have laughed at. I kept your letters in a box under my bed and I read them before I slept, so maybe I’d dream about you, that’s how much I missed you. I’m sorry I ever let you believe differently.” 

You feel like Hawkeye just pulled you from under an avalanche, like you can finally breathe again. He felt it too. It wasn’t just you. It was never just you.

“It’s okay. You’re here now,” you say, matching his soft intimate tone. “How long are you staying?” 

“I don’t know,” Hawkeye says, shrugging. “I think I packed enough for a week, but I was rushing the process. I wasn’t thinking clearly, you know? I was planning on staying as long as you needed me, but,” he trails off. 

“Then you’ll stay for the week and we’ll see after that,” you say. You’re sure you can convince him to extend his stay for at least an extra week, and it’s not like you can’t spare the guest room. You grab him by the shoulders, and give him a comprehensive once-over. “God, I can’t get used to you in civvies,” you say, eying his outfit: a red plaid flannel shirt over blue jeans, not a trace of olive drab in sight. He snaps one of your suspenders against your chest. 

“Oh yeah? I thought you would have discontinued this look as soon as Korea was in the rearview mirror,” he says, before he starts to tug at your mustache. “And what the hell is this still doing here? It’s doubled in size, you’ll need a scythe to cut this back. I had hoped Peg would have the good taste to get rid of it." 

“She said it looked dashing,” you say indignantly, though not indignantly enough to dislodge Hawkeye’s fingers. You slide your hands down his arms and step in closer. You can’t get close enough, not with Hawkeye right in front of you for the first time in forever. 

“Well, as evidenced by my presence here, she’s a liar,” Hawkeye responds. His fingers twist in your shirt and you step even closer, leaning forward until your foreheads meet. He wraps one of his hands around the nape of your neck and you close your eyes and stay like that for a few long seconds, breathing him in. Then, you shift in his grip until your face is buried in his throat, pressed flush against his jugular so you can feel his pulse in your skin, like you have two heartbeats. 

“You were gone for so long,” you say, wrapping your arms around his waist. It doesn’t come close to encompassing just how much you’re feeling now, just how much you needed this, how desperate you are to keep him close now that he’s here. 

“I know, Beej,” Hawkeye murmurs into your ear, his hand coming up to cradle the back of your head. “I know.” 

*

You eventually separate and head up to the guest room to put Hawkeye’s things away. He looks first at the rumpled sheets and then at you with wide shocked eyes. 

“Don’t worry, I’ll change the sheets,” you reassure him. 

“Who’s been sleeping here?” he asks warily, as if afraid of the answer. You point to yourself and horror spreads across his expressive face. Living with Peg for so long, you almost forgot what an open book Hawkeye can be. “Beej, you didn’t say things were this bad in your letters.” 

“What are you talking about? Things are fine,” you say, because they are, especially now that Hawkeye is here. 

“You’re sleeping in separate beds,” Hawkeye points out in outrage. “That’s not a hallmark of a happy marriage.” 

“Tell that to the three bears in the Goldilocks story,” you say, because you really don’t have a defense for him. Your marriage is barely a marriage anymore, and you’ve realized now that you prefer things this way. Peg is your best friend, but that’s just about all you need or want from her. Besides, you don’t want to tell Hawkeye about Vivian until Peg gives you the go-ahead. 

“So, what, I’m sleeping in your bed and you’re sleeping where?” Hawkeye asks, moving past that problem to the next problem. 

“Oh, don’t worry about it, Hawk, I can take the couch for a bit,” you offer. His eyes practically bulge out of their sockets. You forgot how fun it is to see Hawkeye get worked up. 

“For a whole week? Beej, that’s criminal, I couldn’t do that to you,” he says, genuinely distraught. You can tell he’s about to offer to take the couch, so you open your mouth to preempt him without thinking. 

“We could share the bed,” you end up saying. Hawkeye’s jaw drops a little. You understand the sentiment. You have no idea where that came from. 

“What?” Hawkeye asks. You decide to act like what you said wasn’t crazy. You’re warming to the concept anyway. 

“It’s not like you snore or kick,” you say shrugging. “I get it if you’re not comfortable with the idea, but if neither of us is going to let the other sleep on the couch, I don’t think there’s another option.” There is, of course, the option of Hawkeye sleeping in a hotel nearby, but you will gnaw off your own hand before you let that happen. 

“You’re sure?” Hawkeye asks, something very hesitant in his face, in his posture. You nod.

“What is there to be unsure about? We slept next to each for years in Korea,” you say, the way he used to say it, and he almost flinches when he hears your delivery. It’s different and you both know it, but in some ways it’s not. You can differentiate between Hawkeye’s wet dreams and nightmares based on the way his breathing changes, can tell if he’s about to wake up or if he’s deep in sleep based on the way he tosses and turns, can gauge exactly how much pressure on his face you can exert with a pen without waking him up. How much more intimate can you get? 

“Well, as long as you keep your big feet on your side,” Hawkeye finally says. He sits heavily on the bed, rubbing at his eyes. “I might just go to sleep right now. I’ve kind of had a harrowing couple of days.” 

“Of course, it’s Erin’s naptime too,” you say, and he flips you off, reclining back on the pillows. “You can shower if you want to freshen up,” you offer. “The bathroom’s just down the hall. Here, let me get you a towel.” 

You go to the linen closet and grab the fluffiest towel you see, but when you get back, Hawkeye is already asleep against the headboard, his face as sweet in slumber as you remember. You put the towel on a chair, before tugging the blankets over him, tucking him in. 

You used to do this all the time. Hawkeye could never tell when he was about to fall asleep until it was too late, so he was always passing out in inconvenient locations or positions and it’d be up to you to put him to bed. You push his flop of charcoal hair back from his forehead, and, on a whim, press a kiss to the skin there. He makes a soft noise in his sleep, then subsides. You stare down at him for a very long time, your lips tingling from the contact, your heart racing for no reason. 

When you leave the room, Peg is waiting just outside in the hall. You look at each other for a long moment, before you simultaneously decide that this is a terrible place to have a conversation, considering half the house is asleep a few doors down, and head downstairs silently. 

She sits down heavily at the kitchen table and you sit down across from her. 

“So he’s staying in the guest room,” she says finally. You nod. There’s a silence. “You are also staying in the guest room,” she adds. You nod again. There’s another silence. “How are you feeling about that?” 

“Fine,” you say, because it does feel fine. It feels more than fine, actually, to imagine Hawkeye wrapped up in your sheets, warm and safe and sleepy. That might be a problem. A bigger problem is how much you wanted to crawl in after him, curl up against his side under the blankets. You didn’t even want to sleep, you just wanted to be warmed by him for a little as he breathed. 

“Well, that’s good,” Peg says indulgently, her expression very skeptical. “How long is he staying?” 

“The week at least,” you respond. She nods. You also nod. There’s been a lot of nodding this conversation. 

“Which day do you think you’ll break?” she asks innocently. “First? Second?”

“I have no idea what you mean,” you say, deliberately not thinking about what that could mean. She nods.

“Of course you don’t,” she says fondly. She stands up and smacks a kiss against your forehead before walking to the counter to grab a snack. You think about how different that kiss felt from the one you gave Hawkeye a few minutes ago. Dammit. 

“Peg,” you say. 

“Yes, dear,” she says, coming back to the table with two clementines. You grab one of them and start peeling, your words forgotten in the heat of battle. You and Peg always competed on who could peel the clementine fastest without tearing the peel. You were the first to start winning regularly, but she got much faster while you were in Korea, and now you tie more often than not. 

This time though, you come out on top. You present the peel to her. 

“I bet I can last the whole week without breaking,” you say. She snaps her fingers in defeat and then, two seconds later, puts her own unbroken peel on the table. 

“Oh, I’m sure you could,” she says, smiling widely. “You lasted two whole years without breaking once, didn’t you?” You narrow your eyes at her and she smiles even wider. “But you had a good reason not to back then. What’s your reason for holding out now?” 

You think about that question for a little bit, popping little sections of the clementine in your mouth. You don’t think you have a good answer to that question. 

*

The problem with you is that you have a nasty habit of thinking about things too much. Hawkeye calls them your ‘little spirals’, where you’ll have a thought and then you’ll worry it in your head like a kid with a loose tooth, prodding and poking it over and over again until the tooth pops free and you snap, usually taking Hawkeye out with you. That’s why you tend to ignore uncomfortable realities. Nobody wants you to be aware of things, least of all yourself. Still, this reality may not be uncomfortable so much as the key to your long-term happiness.

So, after Peg leaves you alone in the living room to pick up some groceries, you start to wiggle the tooth. You don’t really know how to parse through all of the feelings you have about Hawkeye, they’re all so complicated and intense. You know you want him to some degree, but you don’t know how much. 

Waggles snuffles in your lap and you scritch him behind his ears idly as you think. 

You know you always feel better when Hawkeye’s within arm’s reach, when you can reach out and hold him. You know that the idea of sleeping next to him is appealing in a way that not many things are appealing these days. How much more do you want? You wonder how you would have reacted if, when Hawkeye first showed up and started undressing you, he hadn’t been looking for an injury, if he had more intimate reasons. You imagine him treating you the way you saw him treat Nurse Bigelow sometimes, wrapping you up in his arms, flirting with you in that ridiculous over-the-top way that used to make you uncomfortable to watch, nibbling on your neck and whispering filthy innuendo in your ear- 

Your cheeks flood with heat as you quickly stop imagining things. Okay, so you want Hawkeye. And given the way you just reacted to those thoughts, you’ve probably wanted him for a while. Well, that’s a mystery solved. 

Unfortunately, you still have to worry about Hawkeye’s feelings. Does he want you too? The same way? If he does, how long will he want you? Could he be convinced into starting something long-term or will he go back to Maine after this and move on? Would you survive it if that happened? 

Before you can begin to dissect that Gordian Knot, Hawkeye walks into the living room, a vaguely hunted expression on his face. You move to stand up, but Waggles forbids you from moving by whining sleepily. Hawkeye smiles nervously at you and you gesture for him to join you on the couch.

“I woke up and didn’t remember where I was. I thought I had been abducted by an alien race of interior designers,” Hawkeye says as he sits next to you on the couch, a solid six inches away from you. Waggles perks up, stepping gently off your lap and padding over to sit in Hawkeye’s. You get it. If you had a choice between your lap and Hawkeye’s, you’d act similarly. 

“Who’s to say you weren’t? We could be in outer space right now, and you would have no idea,” you say. 

“I could look out of the windows,” Hawkeye says. You raise your finger to object. 

“Ah, but I could have simply simulated your primitive Earthen environment with my superior alien technology,” you fire back. Hawkeye smiles at you fondly. 

“You know, the idea is starting to grow on me,” he says. “How else could you explain your big feet?” 

“All the better to kick you with, my dear,” you say, grinning. He feels too far away from you, but you don’t know how to get closer without giving yourself away. You reach over and play with Waggles’ ears. Hawkeye’s fingers overlap with yours on his head. “How did you sleep?” 

“You know what’s crazy?” Hawkeye asks, rhetorically. You make a noise of inquiry in your throat anyways, because Hawkeye loves a bit of audience participation. “That’s the best sleep I’ve had since I got back stateside.” You cut a concerned look at him. 

“Nightmares?” you ask. He shakes his head. 

“Insomnia,” he says. “Chronic. I’ve struggled with it periodically. Luckily, my dad knows how to manage me when I get like this, but getting to sleep has been a real challenge.” 

“You should sleep here more often, then,” you say. Hawkeye cuts a searching look at you from under his lashes before refocusing on Waggles. 

“So, are we going to talk about the whole guest bedroom thing?” he asks. 

“What is there to talk about?” you say, dodging the question. Hawkeye narrows his eyes at you, but before he can launch an offensive, the front door opens and Peg comes in with bags full of groceries. 

“BJ, can you put these away?” Peg calls, her voice harried. “I’m gonna go get Erin up.” 

You hop to attention, and Hawkeye follows, after gently depositing Waggles on the floor. It doesn’t take long before you’re all done, even with Hawkeye asking questions about where everything goes and why you chose to put things in certain places. By the time you’re done, Peg has made it into the kitchen, Erin in her arms. 

“Would you like to meet the youngest Hunnicutt?” Peg asks. Hawkeye looks at you as if to ask for permission, and you urge him forwards. He steps a bit closer to Peg, holding out one of his hands towards Erin as if he still doesn’t know if he’s allowed to touch her. 

“Erin, this is Hawkeye,” Peg says in a soft voice. Erin’s eyes widen in her precious baby face. 

“Hi, Erin, it’s very nice to meet you. Did you know you have your father’s ears?” Hawkeye asks, his voice gentle but skittish, like a deer in the woods. 

“Hawkeye?” she asks, blinking at him with big hopeful eyes. Hawkeye nods. 

“Yeah, I’m Hawkeye,” he says. Erin lights up like a Christmas tree, kicking her legs and reaching out to him. 

“Hawkeye! Daddy, Hawkeye!” Erin says, still scrambling uselessly to get closer to Hawkeye. She gets that from you. 

“I know, Erin, Hawkeye’s here,” you say, thrilled by her reaction.

“Would you like to hold her?” Peg asks. Hawkeye looks at you again for permission before nodding and taking her into his arms very gingerly, like he’s afraid she’ll break if he holds her too tight. Erin wraps her arms around his neck gleefully, patting his face and snuggling closer. Hawkeye looks at you in disbelief before focusing his attention on the little wriggler. 

“Come on, come on,” she says, tugging at his shirt insistently. 

“Come on, where?” Hawkeye asks. 

“She wants to show you her toys,” you translate, pointing towards her stack of toys in the living room. 

“Oh? You know, I helped your daddy pick out a few of those in Tokyo, did you know that?” Hawkeye says, walking them over to the pile. 

“Uh-huh,” Erin says, “Miss Margaret and Chaz Baby.” She points to the two dolls that Hawkeye helped pick out and you helped Erin name. You smile, anticipating Hawkeye’s reaction. You knew this one was gonna pay off. 

“Excuse me, sweetheart, can you say those names again?” Hawkeye says, stifling laughter. 

“Miss Margaret,” she says, pointing to a beautiful girl doll with black hair, “Chaz Baby,” pointing to an angry looking bald doll that makes silly faces when you pull a little lever. Hawkeye throws his head back in laughter and Erin laughs too, despite not understanding the joke. 

“Tell me the names of all your other friends,” Hawkeye says through gales of laughter, settling them both on the ground and sorting through the toys available. 

“I’m gonna fix some dinner,” you say, and Hawkeye nods absently, his full attention on Erin as she explains the names and backgrounds of her toys. 

Peg follows you into the kitchen. As soon as you’re out of earshot of Hawkeye, she asks, “What was that about being able to last a week?” 

“I could definitely last the week,” you say, grabbing some ingredients. Peg laughs quietly. 

“BJ, the last time I saw that look on your face, nine months later, we had Erin.” You turn to her with wide shocked eyes, eyebrows raised. She nods, smirking smugly. You blink at her. Then you look back down at the food. 

Well, it’s a good thing you already decided you weren’t waiting. 

*

Hawkeye and Erin come into the kitchen eventually, after Erin tires of her toys. Hawkeye deposits Erin in her chair, though you notice that he brought one of Erin’s toys along for her to play with. You feel your face light up, and realize this is probably what Peg meant. 

“Hawkeye, I want to apologize,” Peg says. “I shouldn’t have gone so far with my letter, I didn’t realize how distraught you would be.” 

“No, it’s my fault,” Hawkeye says, shaking her apology off with his typical charm. “I was acting like a real fink, and I needed the kick in the pants. Also, I should have known you would be an incurable prankster. Your husband and his best man both were, it stands to reason that you would be too. ” 

“Oh, I forgot you met Leo,” Peg says, putting the last touches on the food, and Hawkeye makes a noise of outrage in his throat upon hearing the name. “He’s a real son of a gun, huh?” she asks cheerfully. 

“One of the worst fiends around,” you chime in. “We’re still in touch, he sent me a gag gift last week, but I haven’t opened it yet.” 

“I can’t believe _he_ was your best man, of all people,” Hawkeye grouses. “Didn’t you have any better friends?” 

“Not at the time, no,” you respond, because it’s true. You were one of those guys who had many friends, but no really close ones. Leo beat a pack of guys that you liked just fine for the position simply by being slightly more interesting than any of them. Hawkeye’s the first real best friend you’ve ever had, after Peg, of course. “I never really needed all that many friends while I had Peg,” you say, and she smiles in acknowledgement. 

“Don’t worry, Hawkeye, next time BJ gets married, he’ll be sure to pick someone more suitable as his best man,” Peg says, a twinkle of mischief in her eyes. Hawkeye blinks at her, looking between the two of you as if he’s not sure he’s allowed to join in on making jokes about your marriage ending. 

“Oh, of course,” you say, hopping on her joke. “You’d be willing to do it, wouldn’t you, Peg?” 

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Peg says beaming. Hawkeye looks at you like you just shot him. 

“Now, hold on just one second,” he says, his outrage only barely feigned. “If anyone here is going to be his best man, it’s going to be his best _man,_ me!” 

“You couldn’t be his best man, Hawkeye,” Peg says, shaking her head in feigned disappointment. Hawkeye starts to look a little genuinely upset. 

“Why not?” 

“You’re going to have a different role in the wedding, obviously,” you chime in. 

“What, the flower girl?” Hawkeye asks. “Or am I walking you down the aisle?” Peg laughs. 

“You’ll be the bride, silly,” Peg responds, and you carefully watch his face to see his reaction to the idea. Peg really is an incredible wingman. You’ll have to thank her for this later. 

Hawkeye freezes a bit, and something flashes in his eyes, before he covers it up with a laugh.

“Oh, I see. I’m sitting at a table with a couple of comedians,” Hawkeye says. Guilt. That was the emotion in Hawkeye’s eyes, it was guilt. Is that a good thing? You can’t tell if that’s promising or not. Hawkeye feels guilty about everything, it’s like his curse. “Good thing you’re not getting a divorce, or we’d all have to plan the wackiest wedding in the world.” 

“Well, the future’s never written in stone,” Peg says enigmatically. Hawkeye scrutinizes her and then you, and visibly gives up on understanding the conversation. 

“Erin, you have very confusing parents,” he says to Erin, who giggles and reaches out to him to be picked up again. Hawkeye obliges easily, setting her down on his lap so she’s tucked safely in the crook of his arm. “Don’t worry, now that I’m here, everything is going to be much more straightforward and understandable.” 

“Hawkeye nose,” Erin says, reaching out to grab the end of the very same nose. 

“That’s exactly right, Erin, Hawkeye knows,” Hawkeye says, his eyes crinkling up as he smiles down at her. You feel your heart swell in your chest at the picture they paint together. You knew they would love each other, but this is even better than your wildest imaginings. 

When you can tear your eyes away, Peg is smirking at you knowingly. You stick your tongue out at her, and she laughs in shock. Hawkeye looks up and you smooth your expression hastily. He looks like he’s about to ask what just happened, but before you can preempt it, Peg jumps in. 

“I think now's a good time to serve dinner, don’t you think?” she asks. 

Hawkeye helps you set the table as Peg serves everyone. You and Hawkeye sit next to each other, scooting your chairs together out of habit so your right arm is pressed up against his left. Peg sits across from Hawkeye with a damp washcloth to manage Erin’s various spills. It’s a charming tableau. You could get used to it. 

“So, what all did you get up to in Boston?” Peg asks. Hawkeye freezes for half a second, blink and you’ll miss it, before he smiles and begins to speak. 

“I was actually looking for work. I have a few friends in the city and they helped me check out a few surgical positions. We didn’t find anywhere that felt like a good fit, but I still have time,” Hawkeye responds. You narrow your eyes at him. He hasn’t looked at you yet. What about Boston would make him act like that? 

“Margaret and Charles settled down in Boston, didn’t they?” you ask. Hawkeye nods easily. 

“Yeah, it was great to catch up with them,” Hawkeye says, this time making eye contact for just a bit too long, the way he always does when he’s bluffing. You didn’t play poker across the man for years without learning his tells. You smile blandly at him and he looks down at his plate. 

“What’s Margaret up to?” you ask. Hawkeye’s eyes brighten. 

“She’s staying with Helen right now, actually,” Hawkeye says. You furrow your brows. “Nurse Whitfield, remember?” It dawns on you. You remember Whitfield -- excellent nurse, though she had to be transferred. She and Margaret were oddly close, usually the nurses don’t attach themselves to Margaret the way Helen did. Now you suppose you know why. 

“Oh, how are they?” you ask, genuinely curious about them. 

“They’re great, really great. I’ve never seen Margaret so happy,” Hawkeye says fondly. Peg looks at you with raised eyebrows and you confirm her suspicions with a nod. Her eyes widen with surprise and a great deal of appreciation. 

“And Charles, how is he?” you ask. 

“He’s still Charles, regrettably,” Hawkeye says, though his tone is tempered with a degree of fondness. It’s so difficult for Hawkeye not to care about people, all you have to do is stand next to him for upwards of three minutes and be anti-war and he’s yours. Even when he hated Charles most, he was always just a little bit fond of him, simply because he also did not want to be there. 

“Things going well for him at Boston Mercy?” you prompt. 

“Yeah, he couldn’t stop talking about his recent raise. What that man needs with even more money is beyond me, but he seems to be genuinely content with his life. Apparently, he and Margaret go out for weekly lunches and argue until they get politely asked to leave the restaurant. I think they might actually be best friends now.” 

You wait until he’s taking a sip before asking, “How was Trapper?” 

Hawkeye chokes on his drink. Good. He coughs for a little longer than you think he needs, probably stalling for time while he thinks of a lame excuse. 

“How did you know?” Hawkeye asks when he finally recovers, his eyes narrowed, if still a bit watery. 

“You got cagey,” you respond. Hawkeye rolls his eyes. 

“It’s not the crime that gets you, it’s the cover-up,” Hawkeye complains. 

“Who’s Trapper?” Peg asks. 

“Hawkeye’s ex-boyfriend,” you say facetiously, just as Hawkeye says, “Nobody.” You glare at each other. 

“He was my tentmate at the MASH unit before Beej showed up. They never met, which makes BJ’s irrational dislike of him even more ridiculous.” 

“I don’t dislike him,” you say. Hawkeye narrows his eyes at you. Peg also narrows her eyes at you. You wait a few seconds, before you feel the compulsion to open your mouth again. “I just think it’s funny how-” 

“There it is,” Hawkeye interjects, as Peg bursts into laughter. 

“I just think it’s funny how you managed to get in contact with him before you did with me,” you say over both of them. “Did his wife also con you?” _Or is it just easier for you to be around him?_

“No, actually, she did not. Margaret and Helen were taking me to dinner and we ran into him and his lovely wife at a restaurant, so we all decided to eat together and that’s all that happened.” 

“Hm,” you hum, noncommittal. Hawkeye still looks fidgety, so you know there’s more to come. 

“Well, and drinks at his place after, but that’s not a big deal, is it?” 

“Oh, of course not. What you do in your free time is your business,” you say cooly. Peg widens her eyes at you in disbelief. You realize she hasn’t seen you like this before. Your jealous streak only started rearing its head in Korea, when you started realizing just how precarious everything in your life really was. 

“We didn’t pull a single prank together, I promise,” Hawkeye swears. You look at him skeptically. “Well, just a quick one on Margaret for old time’s sake, but that was it, and it wasn’t even that funny, you would have done way better.” 

“What was it?” you ask, just to punish yourself. 

“Beej,” Hawkeye says. 

“I’m just curious,” you say. Hawkeye stares at you in tense silence. You stare back. 

“We hid her wallet, so she and Helen pushed us into a fountain,” Hawkeye confesses. You’re going to wring his neck. “But that’s all, really!” 

“It’s fine if you spent an evening playing pranks with an old friend, why would I have a problem with that? I just think it’s odd that you tried to hide it from me,” you say. Hawkeye’s widen comically. 

“I hid it because I knew you would react like this,” Hawkeye says, accusatorily. 

“Like this? Like what?” you ask in disbelief. “I haven’t said or done anything.” 

“No, but with you it’s all about your tone,” Hawkeye shoots back. “That cool little, ‘nothing can touch me and I don’t care about anything you’re saying right now’ tone,” Hawkeye says. 

“Oh, is that what my tone means?” you ask, smirking in the exact way you know will piss him off. 

“Yes, it is,” Hawkeye says, incensed now. “And if you think I don’t know that you’re doing that on purpose, then you have drastically underestimated just how often I have been subjected to that condescending little smirk.” 

“You think I’m condescending?” you ask, outraged. “I’m the condescending one here?” 

“Yes, yes you are, and that’s not even the top of my list of problems with you, Hunnicutt,” he fires back. You’ve leaned closer to each other over the course of your little spat and now you’re almost nose to nose. 

“You have a list of problems with me?” you ask. 

“Oh, I have a veritable litany of problems with you,” Hawkeye says. “Would you like them alphabetized, ranked in descending order based on how much they irk me, or in chronological order from when I started noticing them? 

“Please, by all means, recite in whatever order you want, I know how compulsive you get about stuff like this,” you say, as snidely as you can muster. Hawkeye’s left eye starts twitching in rage. 

“Compulsive?” he asks, his voice almost shaking. 

“Yes, Hawkeye, compulsive. Everything has to be done exactly the way you want it at all times or you pitch a fit. I swear to god, your tantrums are worse than Erin’s sometimes,” you retort. 

“My tantrums?” Hawkeye squawks. “What about your tantrums? Or do you not remember the saga of Carl the Handyman?” 

“Carl?” Peg asks, from where she's been fussing with Erin as you argued. You both turn to her in surprise. To be honest, you forgot she was there, too caught up in Hawkeye. “Our handyman here in California?” 

“That’s the one,” Hawkeye says. 

“Why would that meathead come up in conversation in Korea?” she asks. Hawkeye blinks at her, and you realize that maybe Peg and Hawkeye meeting may not be as good for your health as you had always imagined. 

“That meathead?” Hawkeye asks in a dangerously even tone. “Are you telling me that you don’t even like Carl?” 

“Well, not really,” Peg says incredulously. “I mean, he’s a sweet kid, and he’s strong as all get out, but he’s not the sharpest tool in the shed. Honestly, I would have stopped asking him for help ages ago, except BJ likes him so much.” Hawkeye turns to you with fire in his eyes. 

“How about I clean up?” you say, just a hair too loudly, grabbing plates and heading to the sink. 

“You rat!” Hawkeye hisses, grabbing the dirty cutlery you missed and following you to the sink. “How many hours did I endure of you ranting and raving about Carl, and his muscles, and his sleeveless t-shirts? And you’re the whole reason he’s in the picture in the first place?” 

“Drop it, Hawkeye,” you say under your breath, your cheeks flaming. God, what if Hawkeye isn’t the first man you ever wanted? Is that why you got so worked up about Eddie Jenson in undergrad? This is so embarrassing. 

“By the way, I forgot to mention that I’m not sleeping here tonight. Erin and I are going to stay at Vivian’s,” Peg interjects from the table. Both of you turn to her simultaneously, your argument dropped for the second, if not forgotten. 

“Helping her pack?” you ask. She nods. 

“Is she going on a trip?” Hawkeye asks. 

“No, actually, she’s about to move in with us,” Peg says. Hawkeye furrows his brows in confusion, looking at you for corroboration, which you give. 

“Am I missing something? How do you have the space?” Hawkeye asks. You look at Peg, letting her take the lead on this one. 

“Viv usually stays in the master bedroom with me,” Peg says delicately, and you don’t think you imagine both of you holding your breath a bit. Hawkeye nods slowly and then freezes, eyes widening as he parses that statement. 

“You mean,” Hawkeye says, looking between you as if waiting for one of you to laugh and tell him you’ve been joking this whole time. 

“I’m guessing that Vivian and I have more in common with Margaret and Helen than you may have suspected,” Peggy says in her typical diplomatic fashion. Hawkeye blinks and nods. 

“You’d get along,” he says, sounding just a bit dumbstruck. “Neither of them can put up with me for more than a day and a half, but they’d get a real kick out of you.” 

“We’ll have to invite them over sometime,” she says, her ‘we’ just ambiguous enough to theoretically include Hawkeye. 

Hawkeye sets his jaw and looks at her very seriously for a few long seconds. “Peg, for years I wondered what kind of human could stand to be married to such a pathological liar and chronic joker,” he says, and it takes you way too long to realize he’s talking about you. “And now I see that it took a truly extraordinary person indeed.” 

Peg’s smile splits her face like the sun through clouds, and you think you see Hawkeye fall just a little bit in love, the way he does with any remarkable person.

“I think you’re extraordinary too, Hawkeye, and what’s more, I even like you quite a bit,” she says, as directly as you’ve ever heard her speak. Hawkeye tends to bring that out of people. They smile at each other and you smile at them and Erin smiles because she sees other people doing it. 

This could be home, you think. 

*

Peg leaves and takes Erin with her, giving you a discreet thumbs up as she heads out. You send her one back and walk into the living room where you left Hawkeye and the last bottle of whiskey. 

“God, I can’t tell if I need a stiff drink or if I just need to lie down,” Hawkeye says, leaning back on the couch, the whiskey sitting in front of him. 

“Why choose? Follow me and bring the bottle,” you say. Hawkeye looks down at the bottle and then back up at you. 

“Are you sure?” he asks. 

You shrug. “Sure. If we spill, we can just wash the sheets, it’s no big deal.” 

Hawkeye opens his mouth to say something before he thinks better of it. Instead he grabs the bottle and smiles at you. 

“Lay on, MacDuff,” he says, and you take him by the arm, hauling him off the couch and escorting him up the stairs. You don’t let go of his arm. He doesn’t ask you to. 

As soon as you get to the room, Hawkeye sprawls out across the right side of the bed, claiming it for his own. This is normal for you, of course. Whenever you got shared R&R, after a day of sleep, good food, booze and adventure, you would always end up on the same bed in your hotel room, sharing a bottle. You’d talk for hours until Hawkeye called it quits and went to his own room, which was always your least favorite part of leave. This will be the first time Hawkeye doesn’t leave. 

“I will say, BJ, when I imagined your home life after the war, this is not how it looked,” Hawkeye says and you burst into laughter. You grab the bottle and take a generous pull straight from the mouth. You hand it to Hawkeye, who takes a swig of his own. You feel like a teenager sharing a Coke with your crush for the first time, daydreaming about indirect kisses. 

“Me neither,” you say. “Peg really threw me for a loop for a second there.” 

“Yeah, I really didn’t think Peg was the type to wear comfortable shoes, if you know what I mean,” Hawkeye says. You take the bottle back from him and take a sip. You think you can taste Hawkeye under the whiskey. You drink slower than you usually would, to savor it. 

“You’ll get it when you see her and Vivian interact,” you say. “They fit together, you know?” 

“I guess this explains the guest room thing,” he says and you laugh. “The master bedroom got crowded, huh?” 

“It would have happened anyway,” you confess, the combination of liquor and Hawkeye making your tongue loose. “Peg and I weren’t sleeping together, not really. We slept next to each other, but we were mostly avoiding each other in the bedroom until I learned about Viv and we had the excuse to stop trying to make it work.” 

“So you didn’t,” Hawkeye trails off, waggling his eyebrows instead. You burst into laughter at his antics. “Not even once?” 

“Not even once. Neither of us was all that interested, honestly,” you say. Hawkeye looks at you like you’re an alien species. “It’s not that big a deal.” 

“Not that big a deal?” Hawkeye asks, aghast. “Beej, you’ve been celibate for years now, sex was one of the most critical things you had to look forward to when you got home.” 

“I’m saving myself for someone special,” you say, faux-defensively. “What about you, have you carried over your lothario ways from Korea?” You don’t want the answer to be yes, even though you know that’s not fair. Hawkeye’s face gets a bit pinched. 

“Not exactly,” he hedges, and you smirk victoriously. 

“Not even with Trapper?” you ask innocently and he rolls his eyes, shoving you. 

“Yeah, Beej, we fucked in the fountain in front of his wife and all of Boston Plaza,” he says, and you laugh even though the imagery makes you vaguely homicidal. His face gets a bit more serious. “No, I haven’t. I haven’t really even tried. I keep imagining trying to talk to someone who has no idea what happened over there, and it just makes me nauseated.” 

“It’s hard to find someone who understands,” you say, rolling over a bit so you’re looking directly at him. “I get it.” 

You lock eyes and, for a second, for the first time, you see all of his emotions scrawled across his face, fierce longing, fear, anticipation, and of course, guilt. Your heart swells. You spent this whole night trying to figure out if he could want you the same way, but up until this moment, you didn’t realize he was already yours. You inch closer to him, and his eyes flicker down to your lips, the way they have a billion times before, you realize. He was letting you know all through Korea, and you just didn’t see it. 

Now you do. 

“I’m gonna go shower,” Hawkeye says out of nowhere, rolling away from you and standing up. You move to stand too, before you remember that you don’t live in a house with communal showers and lie back down again. Hawkeye looks at you in confusion before he bursts into laughter. 

“You forget the shower wasn’t communal, didn’t you?” Hawkeye asks. 

“Any shower is communal if you’re brave enough,” you say. Hawkeye laughs again at your not-necessarily-a-joke, and leaves the room after grabbing some clothes from his bag and the towel you brought him earlier. He’s beating a hasty retreat and you know that, but you also know he’s coming back to you, and that’s enough to ease any worry. You remember that there’s an attached bath to the master bedroom that you can use tonight, so you decide to take advantage of it. 

When you get back from your shower, Hawkeye is already tucked under the sheets, fast asleep. You deflate a bit, but not much. You have a whole week, after all, and it’s not like you’re dreading the opportunity to sleep next to him. Maybe you could even fall asleep pressed against his side and pretend you moved in the night. He’d buy that for sure. 

You get into bed gingerly, trying not to wake him. As soon as you’re settled, you look back down at his sleeping face, his big crooked nose, the slightest pattern of stubble on his cheeks, his long eyelashes. You’re pushing some of his hair back from his forehead like you did earlier when you see the slightest flicker of tension in his jaw. 

You narrow your eyes and peer at him, and yep, his eyes are moving under his eyelashes. The dirty rotten coward. 

You continue playing with his hair, curling a bit closer to him. You drag your blunt nails across his scalp a few times, smirking at the way his lips part the slightest bit before he remembers he’s supposed to be unresponsive. It’s nice. You could probably let him get away with this, and it wouldn’t be a big deal. 

“Oh, Hawkeye, no wonder you passed out so fast. You must be so tired. I get it. Long flight, long day.” Hawkeye doesn’t stir. You smirk and then bait the hook. “It’s just such a shame, because I was finally about to tell you what BJ stands for.” His eyes fly open. You grin victoriously. “Like shooting a fish in a barrel,” you crow quietly, your fingers still drawing idle patterns on his scalp. 

“That’s cheating,” Hawkeye says, glaring at you.

“Well, all’s fair in love and war,” you say, your hand still in his hair. 

“And which are we?” Hawkeye asks. “Because, I gotta be honest with you, BJ, I’m picking up a lot of mixed signals right now.” 

“Mixed signals?” you ask incredulously. “Mixed? Hawkeye, I just shanghaied you into sleeping in the same bed as me even though the master bedroom is unoccupied tonight; unoccupied, I might add, because Peg wanted us to have the house to ourselves. Now I’m approximately three inches away from you, my hand is in your hair and neither of us is actually tired. What about this situation feels ambiguous to you?” 

Hawkeye thinks for a very long time about this. Really, way too long. 

“Well, I think it’s more about historical context than situational-” he finally begins, before you cut him off with a kiss, because there’s just no way that sentence was going to have a point. 

For all his prevaricating, Hawkeye kisses like he has exactly zero reservations. His hands come up to cup your face, and he molds himself to your front like wet cotton, moaning softly and rocking his hips against yours as you lose yourselves in sensation. Hawkeye tastes like whiskey and toothpaste and something familiar that sits on your tongue like sugar, sending endorphins skittering through your body, your arousal a low insistent hum in your blood. 

You knew Hawkeye had to be good in bed to some degree, considering how many hours of practice he put in, but you never really imagined what that skill would translate to in practice. It’s not like you’re a slouch in the department, considering your years of marriage, but Hawkeye is something else. He devours you with specific and skilled intent, mapping your mouth with an ease and focus that leaves you almost swooning. You would almost feel self-conscious about the disparity in technique except that from Hawkeye’s reactions, he’s just as worked up as you are, making small noises in the back of his throat and clutching at you with desperate roaming hands.

You trail kisses across his cheek down to his neck. Hawkeye tenses and shudders against you in a very promising way, so you focus all your attention there, trying to make him make an embarrassing noise. 

“Beej,” he sighs. “Wait, wait.” You pull yourself off his neck, eyeing him for any signs of discomfort. 

“What, you don’t want to?” you ask anxiously. God, if you miscalculated on this, you’ll lose everything. 

“Are you kidding me, of course I want to, I’ve wanted this since Kimpo, but-” 

“Since Kimpo?” you ask incredulously, because you had no idea. “Wait, if you want to, why’d you stop?” 

“I thought you were saving yourself for someone special,” he says, and you roll your eyes and reattach yourself to his neck, this time genuinely trying to leave a mark. Shove that in your fountain, Trapper John. “Wait, no, I’m serious.” 

“What now?” you complain, albeit a bit breathlessly. 

“I understand what’s happening, but I don’t understand why it’s happening,” Hawkeye says, his lips red and swollen, his irises just a thin blue ring around his dilated pupils. “Beej, this is coming out of nowhere.” 

“What are you talking about?” you ask, exasperated. “I thought you wanted this since Kimpo.” 

“I wanted this in Kimpo, but you didn’t!” Hawkeye cries. 

“Yes, I did,” you say. Hawkeye flares his eyes in outrage. 

“You’re lying! In fact, you’re lying to get me into bed which is messed up, I should know, I do it all the time,” Hawkeye accuses. 

“I’m not lying to you, Hawkeye, just because I didn’t know I wanted you doesn’t mean I didn’t want you.” 

“That’s semantics,” Hawkeye says, and you shake your head. 

“I said Rudyard Kipling and then you turned to look at me, and then you looked at me again,” you say seriously. “That’s when it started for me. I know it.” Hawkeye furrows his brows in confusion. 

“Why? How do you know?” he asks. 

“Hawkeye, nobody gives me a second look when they first meet me.” 

“That’s ridiculous,” Hawkeye says, glaring a bit. You shake your head. It’s true. It took ages for Peg to notice you - you had to console her during a break-up for her to see you as a potential love interest. At the MASH unit, most people only really cared about you because Hawkeye claimed you as his and refused to go anywhere without you. You still don’t know what he saw that made him attach himself to you so completely, but he’s one of the only two people in the world who have ever seen it that fast, and the other one you almost left your wife for because she reminded you so much of him. 

“You looked at me twice and I decided that I was going to do anything I could to make you keep looking at me,” you say, and it’s one of the truest things you’ve ever said. Hawkeye really does bring honesty out of people. 

“You didn’t have to do anything to make me keep looking at you,” Hawkeye says, stroking a thumb over your cheekbone. You haven’t taken your hands off each other this whole time, which you hope bodes well for the rest of the night. “You were the only thing worth looking at.” You turn your head to kiss his palm, and then his wrist. 

“Come here,” you say, and this time he does without complaint, letting you convince him with your body instead of your words. You maneuver him onto his back, and settle yourself over him, and he sighs into your mouth, shoves his hands under your shirt so he can touch flesh. You roll yourself into him like a wave on the shore and he arches up into you, hitching one of his legs up around your hip. 

“God, I hope you’re here tomorrow morning,” Hawkeye says nonsensically. 

“Hawk, it’s my house, of course I’m going to be here tomorrow,” you say. 

“I was speaking more metaphorically,” Hawkeye begins, before you swallow his words, kissing him into incoherence and beyond. 

*

You wake up before Hawkeye. He’s spread over your bare chest, tucked under your neck. Your arms are around him, cradling him against you and his breaths come in slow and even against your skin. The morning sun sends rays of gold that alight gently on Hawkeye’s skin, making him shimmer almost ethereally. You stroke your hand up and down his spine, lingering at each of his vertebrae, mapping out the back of his ribcage, resting your fingertips on the base of his spine, right above his coccyx. He snuffles in his sleep and you smile. He’s about to wake up, you can tell. 

Hawkeye wakes up in small stages. His eyelashes begin to flutter and he starts to shift in your arms, nuzzling closer to you in an attempt to steal your warmth. You tighten your grip on him and he makes a sleepy sound of approval, nosing at your collarbone. You press a kiss against his temple, and then leave your nose buried in his hair. He smells like your shampoo and something uniquely Hawkeye that you could recognize even if you were deaf and blind. 

“Mm,” Hawkeye hums into your chest. “Morning, Trap.” You feel a horror so profound it paralyzes you, as your entire body attempts a premature rigor mortis. He starts snickering and you relax in one breath, relief and outrage sweeping through you like twin tidal waves. “Kidding, I’m kidding. I couldn’t resist it after you teased me with your real name last night, you fink,” he says, like the little rat he is. You pinch him on his delightful rump and he yelps, before laughing even harder. 

He finally moves his head up to look at you and you look back down at him fondly. 

“Was it as good for you as it was for me?” he asks in a simpering voice, batting his eyelashes. 

You school your expression. “It’ll do for our first round,” you say. You’re lying, it was the best sex you’ve ever had, but there’s no use in telling him when it’ll just swell his ego. He widens his eyes in mock indignation. 

“I rocked your world, Hunnicutt,” he exclaims. “Forget seeing stars, I made you see the birth of the universe. You forgot your own name a couple times there.” 

“Big deal, I forget my own name twice an hour,” you retort just to wind him up. 

“I can’t believe this! I introduce you to sensual ecstasies heretofore unknown to man and you reward me with a milquetoast review. The ingratitude,” he reproaches. You run your hand down his flank. 

“I’m not saying it wasn’t good,” you say in your lightest tone. _Good?_ he mouths at you in outrage. “I’m just saying we can probably improve on it with practice.” Hawkeye perks up at that, predictably. 

“Practice?” Hawkeye asks, intrigued. You try to repress an irrepressible smile. “How much practice are we talking about here?” 

“At least a few years,” you say, before you can think about what you’re implying. Hawkeye’s eyes widen in shock. You hold yourself very still. This is where Hawkeye usually says he can’t be tied down, but you think maybe if you just don’t move, he might forget that you said anything. 

“What, and you’ll pay for my plane tickets?” he asks, half of the humor missing from the statement. You clear your throat and decide to bite the bullet. He made it out here in the first place, didn’t he?

“Well, I was thinking that, since you haven’t found anything to do in the Northeast, you might consider seeking employment and shelter in little old Mill Valley,” you say tentatively. He blinks at you with owlish eyes. “It’s not like we don’t need surgeons on the West Coast, and you’re good enough to walk into any practice you want. Besides, you sleep better here than you do at home.” 

“I don’t think that has anything to do with California, Beej,” Hawkeye says delicately. You nod. 

“I’m not inviting you to sleep with California, Hawk, I’m inviting you to sleep with me. To live with me, actually.” Hawkeye nods at you as he thinks. You swallow a few times to soothe your scratchy throat. If Hawkeye was holding you at gunpoint, you think you would be less anxious. You could probably survive the bullet. 

“Well, it all sounds great, BJ, except,” Hawkeye starts, and your heart plummets. Except Hawkeye’s a free spirit who won’t be pinned down, except Hawkeye can’t leave Maine, except Hawkeye just wanted you for the night, not for your whole lives, “I don’t think a few years is enough time.” 

You blink at him in shock. “You don’t?” you ask inanely. 

“Honestly, Beej,” Hawkeye says, shaking his head, “considering your performance last night, we’re probably looking at a decade of consistent practice until we’re at an acceptable level of sexual prowess.” 

“A decade? That seems generous. I thought for sure you’d swing for two,” you say, a smile spreading across your face. He answers your smile with his own. 

“Let’s make it three decades, just for that sass,” Hawkeye says. “And that’s with consistent practice, mind you.” 

“Of course. Every day that we don’t practice, we’ll probably have to add an extra year, huh?” you ask. He nods, and then you can’t stop yourself from kissing him again, running your fingers over the purple bruise you left on his neck last night, the slight irritation your mustache left all over his throat and chest. He wraps himself around you like an octopus, and you roll him over so you tangle together in the sheets, harder and harder to separate. 

Later, you’ll take Hawkeye downstairs and ask him to grab the paper while you let Waggles out to run in the yard. You’ll fix Hawkeye a plate of the best scrambled eggs he’s ever had, and he’ll read you bits of the paper, mocking the horoscope section loudly. You’ll sit together as you eat your eggs, legs hooked around each other, shoulders and elbows bumping, and you’ll do the Sunday crossword, and every time you get an answer together, you’ll give him a kiss as a reward. Later, Peg will walk in with Vivian and Erin in tow, and she’ll smirk at you so smugly that you’ll go cherry red while Vivian hoots and hollers about Hawkeye’s hickeys and Erin claps giddily. 

Now, however, you pull away, to Hawkeye’s great dismay. “You know I’m in love with you, right?” you ask, because you’ve been speaking around it for so long that it almost hurts to keep the words in your throat. 

“I know, Beej,” Hawkeye says, rolling his eyes at your very sweet and tender love confession. “Now will you get back over here?” 

“You have to say it too,” you say, just to be difficult. Hawkeye looks at you in great exasperation, before he leans in and peppers your face with kisses, whispering quick _‘I love you’s_ between each one. 

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this story!!!!!!!! leave a kudos if you did, and if there was anything specific you like, please feel free to leave a comment! any length is appreciated :)
> 
> if you wondered how I got into BJ's head for this fic, [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/21gImRAUbOxSujLTLSQyDX?si=AjzkE4TnSvKvxshF1ybmEg) is a playlist that I made about him and his repression and his internal life :) I hope you enjoy it as much as I do :)


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